Online auctions show more early demand for PS4 over Xbox One

eBay bidders driving higher markups, more auctions for Sony’s system.

When it comes to picking early winners or losers in the console wars, holiday season sales (or pre-sales) data is of limited use. There’s enough demand for both Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles that both companies will likely sell through whatever inventory they manage to put on store shelves before Christmas, as healthy pre-order data suggests. The company that pulls out to an early sales lead this year will likely be the one with better production and distribution capacity, not the one with any inherent long-term advantage in the marketplace.

But amid these inevitable sellouts, there is one way to get an idea of which console actually has more early demand behind it: the online resale market. There, Sony’s PlayStation 4 is seeing a slightly higher markup for launch-day pre-orders than the Xbox One, both in real dollar and percentage terms.

To figure out just how much demand was driving value for both systems, I headed over to eBay and started compiling sales price figures for completed auctions. To make sure it was an apples-to-apples comparison, I omitted any auctions that included additional bundled software or hardware past the core package and any systems that were not launch-day pre-orders. I looked at data for auctions finishing between October 20 and 26, inclusive, to smooth out any day-to-day variations stemming from when auctions were listed. I also ignored auctions that didn’t meet a reserve or Buy It Now price.

As you can see in the charts above, the results show that while pre-orders for both systems are seeing a healthy markup over MSRP, bidders are generally driving prices up more for the PS4 than the Xbox One. The median price for a PS4 pre-order on the site was $619.34, about 55 percent and $220 higher than Sony’s $400 asking price. An Xbox One pre-order, on the other hand, went for a median eBay price of $699.99, a 40 percent/$200 increase over Microsoft’s $500 MSRP.

Sony’s slight advantage in eBay markups was consistent across the distribution of eBay prices paid, both in dollar and percentage terms. The maximum auction price paid for both systems was $600 above the retail price, amounting to a 250 percent markup for the PS4 and a 210 percent markup for the Xbox One.

Higher eBay markups could suggest that there’s a bit more pent-up demand for the PS4 than the Xbox One, but it’s not the only explanation. Customers could also be responding to a smaller supply of secondhand pre-orders for the PS4 when compared to the Xbox One. The auctions I looked at don’t suggest that’s the case, though. On the contrary: the week I looked at had 521 successful PS4 auctions, compared with only 330 for the Xbox One. Both systems saw about 17 bids on each non-Buy-It-Now auction on average, suggesting that neither is driving substantially more frenzied bidding than the other.

It should be noted that despite the higher markups, eBayers ended up generally paying significantly less for a PS4 than an Xbox One, mainly thanks to the former system’s lower MSRP. It’s very possible that this initial pricing disparity explains some of the difference in eBay markups, as bidders might get more reluctant to buy as prices reach a certain threshold. It’s also important not to overstate the size of Sony’s “advantage” in aftermarket sales thus far, which only amounts to tens of dollars and a few percentage points on average.

Still, if you’re looking to read some early console-preference tea leaves, this is probably as close to hard data as you’re going to get. We’ll see if Sony’s apparent, slight advantage lasts into next year, when post-holiday sales numbers will show more concretely which company is attracting more interest from consumers once the launch-window hype passes.

75 Reader Comments

from article..."both consoles are seeing healthy price margins on Ebay, Xbox One’s are averaging a 60 percent increase over retail prices, whereas the PS4 averages 50. That’s even more noteworthy because the Xbox One is more expensive to begin with." Which makes me think they didn't just use price only.

Here is another source that seems to contradict this. I would normally trust Kyle O. and this is not to discredit him, just another source.

I wouldn't pay over MSRP for either of them, or for anything for that matter. I do agree that while demand may be higher for a particular console, I believe the one who has more in stock (for pre-orders and walk-ins) will sell more consoles. You could argue that someone wouldn't buy the XB1 over the PS4 if it was available due to the extra $100, but I believe this article clearly shows some don't care about cost, only being part of the "in crowd". This relates to non-loyal and/or non-technical buyers.

The chart would be more informative if it divided the bar values for each system by the relevant MSRP value, as that would be showing the price markup of both systems scaled to the correct frame of reference.

How does more people selling their yet to own system on ebay equal the system being more popular? Maybe xbox one preorders were just made by more people who intend to unbox and use the system, versus those just looking to resell it on launch day?

So the preorder that I have that I had planned on cancelling... should be sold on eBay. Gotcha. I sure as hell don't mind taking (from what I'm seeing now) $160-200 profit from someone who "has to have it now." I guess it'll be more like $30 less than that after fees and such, but still. I like money.

I wonder, for comparison's sake, how the Wii U did. This will be an interesting console generation, that's for sure. I personally started with the Xbox One, for various reasons, but the PS4 purchase is going to happen at some point too. The Xbox One Day One Editions were on sale from the Microsoft Store for a while though (my mom bought one launch day, I bought one two weeks later), so it's possible that there's not as much demand for it.

The real test though isn't the launch. These are gaming machines, but gaming machines have, by their nature a limited audience (people who want to play games on their TV). Long-term, I think the multimedia nature of these two devices is going to be as much of a deciding factor as the games.

On that front, the Xbox might have a slight edge.

Of course, that requires them to market it to people effectively. We all know how effective Microsoft marketing is, right?

I wonder how many of these preorders happened before someone can file a chargeback or leave negative feedback for not getting the console as early as they claim. Seems a good racket.

It looks like eBay is being strict on their preorder rules. Basically you can't end an auction over 30 days before the ship date.

The real issue for the seller is signature confirmation. Most people are just changing the address on their Amazon preorder, which does not enable seller protection (signature confirmation for items >$250). So it's really damned easy for anyone who bought one to say that they never got it. Buyers are protected so much on eBay that it's too easy to get screwed as a seller in a situation like this.

Hmm, I might just sell my preordered PS4 when it arrives. I'm not too sure I want it anyway and if I can make a few bucks, why not.

Honestly, do it. Pay attention to the markets beforehand though; my friends and I camped out for the Wii release because we were dumb college kids with nothing better to do, and one of my friends flipped his almost immediately for $300...a $50 profit.

Two problems with this: 1) The Xbox costs $100 more than the PS4, so that inherently skews any percentage-based comparison in Sony's favor.2) No numbers have been given as far as how many of each system were part of the "initial launch run".

Hopefully both Microsoft and Sony were smart enough to not have their entire initial run open to pre-orders, because many locations sold out of pre-orders in hours, if not days.

He accounted for number 1 pretty well in the article.

It was mentioned. I wouldn't say it was "accounted for".

Another way to look at this would be to say that the higher initial price for the XBox 1 doesn't look so silly when you see [some] people are willing to pay much more for both systems.

Wow, you guys looked at these two charts and said "clearly there's more demand for PS4 over XB1"? There are so many economic factors missing from this analysis. All that can be safely said from these numbers is "there is demand for both the PS4 and XB1." Anything beyond that is just guessing.

Not to mention there are no quantities in this data. It could be 1000 Xbox Ones vs. 10,000 PS4s - or it could be the other way around.

£995 to get both consoles on eBay. I paid £784 to Amazon for mine and I have no intention of selling them, despite the increasingly weak launch line ups. I'm only getting one disc for each console, otherwise I would have to swap. With Forza 5 Steelbook edition on ONE (£59.99) and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Skull edition with 60 minutes of extra content as a timed exclusive for my PS4 (£58.99). The costs of the digital games are guesstimates as I irritatingly can't pre-order them. Killzone: Shadow Fall with a 365 day PS+ subscription should be about £86, whilst Battlefield 4 and Premium could be as much as £95, which makes for another £300. So, £1084 in total which wouldn't quite leave buy a game for each console if you had got them from eBay. I ordered my PS4 before E3 and then pre-ordered ONE when DriveClub and Watch_Dogs both disappointingly disappeared from the launch line up.

I suppose that I could bite the bullet and just spend £47.00 on BF4 in order to ensure that I got hold of the China Rising maps, but I just hate having to swap discs. Oh wait, China Rising is the first set of maps to be released two weeks early to those with Premium on 3/12/2013, so that's decided then... go digital.

Hmm... I think I will leave getting Battlefield 4 until after I have had some fun with Killzone: Shadow Fall's campaign and multiplayer. By then DICE may well have ironed out its bugs.

Do I need to craft financial scenarios wherein the buyer didn't have $400 several months ago, but has (and is willing to pay) $600 or $800 today? It's not hard.

You don't pay for a pre-order until you get the console, and you can always cancel it. If you thought there was a chance you would want one pre-ordering as soon as orders were opened was the way to go.

Quote:

Also, parents.

Brand new consoles are not for kids. The prices are not aimed at kids and the games are not aimed at kids. These consoles will be aimed squarely at the core gaming demographic (adults aged 20-40) for a year at the least. More likely two years until the first price drop. It's been a long time since kids were the primary market for a non-Nintendo gaming console.

My family has an Xbox 360 and an Xbox. We bought the Xbox years ago (obviously). Our then 14 year old son bought the 360 three years ago. He wants an Xbox One, and when he goes to college he's leaving the 360 to his now 10 year old sister. In our family, Halo is a "family friendly" game.

It's articles like this that make me glad I've never had that "need it on day one" bug in my brain.

I personally could afford to be an early adaptor, but I can also stand to save the $$ as well. I realized that when I buy a Wii game for $50 and play it months to years later, after either NOT playing it, or only initially for only a few times, that'd bad. In those cases, those games ended up going down to $20. And it's not like I don't have anything to play at any given moment. There's been a backlog of games that's only growing.

Case in point, I'd get a Wii U, especially since I wouldn't have to rebuy all of my controllers (well, the ones without Wii Motion Plus built in may not hack it), but I may as well stick with the Wii, then get the Wii U when it gets one or 2 $50 price cuts.

Wow, you guys looked at these two charts and said "clearly there's more demand for PS4 over XB1"? There are so many economic factors missing from this analysis. All that can be safely said from these numbers is "there is demand for both the PS4 and XB1." Anything beyond that is just guessing.

Not to mention there are no quantities in this data. It could be 1000 Xbox Ones vs. 10,000 PS4s - or it could be the other way around.

The quantities are mentioned in the freaking article. There were more ps4 auctions.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.